Shorter and Simpler, Yes – But Is IBM’s New Cloud Services Agreement Any Sweeter?
- IBM has been receiving rave reviews in the media for simplifying its Cloud Services Agreement to a mere two pages in length. And yes, the Agreement also boasts healthy margins and a normal font. But does the Agreement’s reasonable length equate to reasonable terms?... ›
Hot Off the Press: The December Issue of Our Socially Aware Newsletter Is Now Available
By: Aaron P. Rubin
The latest issue of our Socially Aware newsletter is now available here. In this issue of Socially Aware , our Burton Award -winning guide to the law and business of social media, we look at several topics surrounding the proverbial online thumbs up, including... ›Forced to Cyber-Spy: Court Rules Parents Can Be Held Negligent for Child’s Facebook Activity
By: Aaron P. Rubin
Are parents now liable for what their kids post to Facebook? According to a recent decision in the Georgia Court of Appeals, they are. The Georgia Court of Appeals held that the parents of a seventh-grade student could be found negligent for failing to... ›Facebook Dislikes Fake Likes
Money may not be able to buy happiness, but it can buy phony Facebook “likes.” And those can go a long way toward making a small business owner’s dreams come true, right? Wrong, explains Facebook site integrity engineer Matt Jones in a recent post... ›Hot Off the Press: The November Issue of Our Socially Aware Newsletter Is Now Available
By: Aaron P. Rubin
The latest issue of our Socially Aware newsletter is now available here. In this issue of Socially Aware , our Burton Award -winning guide to the law and business of social media, we discuss an important Ninth Circuit decision refusing to enforce an arbitration... ›Implementing and Enforcing Online Terms of Use
By: Aaron P. Rubin
Operators of social media platforms and other websites must manage a large number of risks arising from their interactions with users. In an effort to maintain a degree of predictability and mitigate some of those risks, website operators routinely present users with terms of... ›To Click or Not to Click? Ninth Circuit Rejects Browsewrap Arbitration Clause
In Kevin Khoa Nguyen v. Barnes & Noble Inc. , 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 15868 (9th Cir. 2014), decided on August 18, 2014, the Ninth Circuit rejected an attempt to bind a consumer to an arbitration clause found in an online terms of use... ›Hot Off the Press: The July Issue of Our Socially Aware Newsletter Is Now Available
By: Aaron P. Rubin
The latest issue of our Socially Aware newsletter is now available here. Welcome to a special privacy issue of Socially Aware , focusing on recent privacy law developments relating to social media and the Internet. In this issue, we analyze a controversial European ruling... ›German Court Finds 25 Provisions in Google’s Online Terms of Use and Privacy Policy to Be Unenforceable
In November 2013, the Berlin District Court ruled that all of the 25 provisions in Google’s online terms of use and privacy policy that had been challenged by the German Federation of Consumer Associations (VZBV) are unenforceable. In reaching its decision, the court found... ›Potential Limitations Placed on Unilateral Right to Modify Terms of Use
By: Jessica Kaufman
Contractual provisions giving a website operator the unilateral right to change its end user terms of service are ubiquitous and appear in the online terms of many major social media sites and other websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google. Although amendments to terms... ›